Scattered in suitable habitats in the Santa Lucia
Mountains is the rarest and most narrowly endemic of all species of fir,
the Santa Lucia Fir. This species is also the most distinct of all firs,
so much so that it is the only taxon of the subgenus Pseudotorreya
(the Bracteatae of some authors). The unique morphological features
include the bracts subtending the cone scales, which terminate in long
and narrowly linear appendages similar to the leaves, the large spindle-shaped
and resinless winter twig buds, the long and sharply pointed leaves (which
resemble the leaves of Torreya of the Yew Family, and hence the
subgeneric name), and the very narrow and sharply pointed spire-like crowns,
which resemble the crowns of fir and spruce species of subalpine and arctic
regions. Santa Lucia Firs occur in the upper watersheds of the Carmel,
Little Sur, Big Sur, Arroyo Seco, San Antonio and Nacimiento Rivers, and
in the watersheds of a number of coastal streams which drain directly into
the Pacific Ocean. To the north populations are scattered from Skinner's
Ridge to Miller's Canyon, with additional populations east of Tassajara
Road in Anastasia Canyon and in the canyon of Calaboose Creek. Southward
the populations gradually become restricted to the Coast Ridge, although
there is a population on the north slope of Junipero Serra Peak (in the
canyon of Santa Lucia Creek). The southern-most documented populations
are located in the watershed of the Arroyo de la Cruz (near Hearst's Castle),
in northwestern San Luis Obispo County. The largest concentrations occur
from the Ventana Double Cone area to Miller's Canyon, and in the vicinity
of Cone Peak. The trees are largely restricted to canyon bottoms, talus
slopes and rock outcrops or cliffs (especially on north or partially north
facing slopes), and most populations occur between about 2,000 feet and
5,000 feet.

Santa Lucia Firs are densely foliated evergreen trees which range from
about 10 m. (33') tall in exposed habitats, to well over 30 m. (100') tall
in moist canyon bottoms. Very large trees can reach heights up to about
50 m. (160') tall. The singular trunks are about as straight as straight
can be in nature, and are rarely free of branches for more than a few feet
above the ground. The leaves are narrowly linear and about 2.8 to 6 cm.
long; the upper surfaces are flat, dark green and shiny, while the lower
surfaces are pale due a coating of a light bloom, excepting for the dark
green and protruding midrib. Pollen is produced in pale yellow catkin-like
strobili, and trees in this reproductive stage (which usually starts in
early May) are very conspicuous. The cones, which are at first green with
a purplish-brown tinge but become purplish-brown when fully mature, are
about 5 to 10 cm. long, and produced on the upper side of the branches.
The cone scales have strongly attached bracts which terminate in leaf-like
awns about 2 to 4 cm. long . The cones mature in late summer, and
begin to break apart in September. The seeds are obovate-cuneate, about
8 to 10 mm. long, and terminated with thin wings about 10 mm. long.

Discovery of the Santa Lucia Fir

While the Esselen and Salinan Indians (in whose
traditional territories the species occurs) certainly had their own names
for this species, the padres at Mission San Antonio de Padua were reported
to have known the trees as Incensio, for they used its resin in the manufacturing
of incense (Jepson 1910). The first botanist to collect a specimen
of Santa Lucia Fir was David Douglas, who found the species on a ridge
west of Mission San Antonio in the spring of 1831, and as he noted that
he also found Sugar Pine (Pinus lambertiana) (Hooker 1836), the
site of collection was probably in the vicinity of Cone Peak. In
the following year (or two) Thomas Coulter visited the same general area
(Griffin 1975), and on this trip Mr. Coulter collected a specimen of Pinus
coulteri (Big Cone or Coulter Pine) which David Don named in honor
of its collector. The uniqueness of the Santa Lucia Fir caught the
interest of subsequent collectors prominent in the botanical history of
California, and most made expeditions to the Santa Lucia Mountains to collect
specimens. The list includes Karl Hartweg, William Lobb, William
Beardsley, Albert Kellogg, William Brewer, Alice Eastwood, William Dudley
and Willis Jepson.

David Douglas and Thomas Coulter sent their Santa Lucia Fir specimens
to England, where the specific name venusta was applied to the Douglas
specimen, and bracteata to the Coulter specimen (during the 1800's
the species was bounced around between the genera Pinus [pine],
Abies [fir] and Picea [spruce]). For many years afterwards
one or the other of the specific names were applied to the Santa Lucia
Fir in botanical literature, but as bracteata was apparently the
first published, this is the proper name according to the rules of botanical
nomenclature. As for the common names applied to this species,
Santa Lucia Fir has been the most often used name in literature published
from 1905 onward, but Sudworth (1908) used the name Bristlecone Fir, and
many people still know this species by this name. Prior to the use
of either of these names Silver Fir was the accepted common name by local
people familiar with the species and botanical authors (re. Veitch 1881,
Eastwood 1897 & 1905, Sargent 1898 & 1905, and Dudley 1902; Dudley
proposed the name Santa Lucia Silver Fir to distinguish it from other species
known by this name). Other common names that have been applied to
this species include Leafy-Coned Silver Fir, Fringe-Cone Fir and Bracted
Fir.

During the mid 1800's English botanists and horticulturists were keenly
interested in the "new" species that were being sent from California, and
in an article published in the July 9, 1853 edition of The Gardener's
Chronicle we find the following passage:

"Mr. Jeffrey, the Scotch collector in Oregon, does not appear
to have found this tree [Abies bracteata; the species had erroneously
been reported to occur in Oregon], Hartweg sent none home from California
[the Douglas and Coulter specimens did not have viable seeds]; so that
this charming species has long been one of the greatest desiderata among
unintroduced trees. We are therefore peculiarly happy to announce
to all eager coniferomaniacs that Messrs. Veitch & Co. are about to
send it into market, as announced in an advertisement in another column.
Their industrious collector, Mr. William Lobb, transmitted seeds some years
ago, from which a crop of fine healthy plants has been obtained."

Santa Lucia Firs are now widely distributed in botanical and private
gardens, but for reasons unknown, garden specimens frequently do not exhibit
the narrowly conical crowns which are so typical of the trees of the Santa
Lucia Mountains. Examples can be found at the Tilden Botanical Garden northeast
of Berkeley and at the Strybing Arboretum in San Francisco; the trees at
these gardens have upwardly ascending branches which form broadly conical
crowns.

Natural History of the Santa Lucia Fir

Fossil evidence from two deposits in western Nevada
dating to the Miocene period (about 13 million years ago) demonstrates
that the Santa Lucia Fir was formerly more widely distributed in western
North America. The deposits in which fossilized Abies bracteata
(A. scherrii Axelrod) were found are also interesting in that they
portray a silvan flora transitional between broadleaf trees and conifers
that was in many ways similar to that found in the Santa Lucia Mountains
at the present time. In fact many of the fossils represent plants
that were closely related to (if not the direct ancestors of) plants
which
currently exist in the Santa Lucia Mountains. Of the plants associated
with the ancient broadleaf forest, specimens of the liveoak Quercus
hannibalii made up to 85% of the specimens in some of the formations.
This species was very similar to Canyon Live Oak (Quercus chrysolepis),
the current overall dominant species at intermediate and higher elevations
in the Santa Lucia Mountains. Other trees and shrubs of the Santa
Lucia Mountains which had counterparts in the Miocene deposits include
Arroyo Willow (Salix lasiolepis), Buck Brush (Ceanothus cuneatus),
Coffee Berry (Rhamnus californica), Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga
menziesii), Dusky Willow (Salix melanopsis), Interior Live Oak
(Quercus wislizenii), Madrone (Arbutus), Maple (Acer),
Mountain Mahogany (Cercocarpus), Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa),
Sycamore (Platanus), Tan Oak (Lithocarpus), and Toyon or
Christmas Berry (Heteromeles). Conifers represented in the fossil
flora which have living counterparts, but not in the Santa Lucia Mountains,
include Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), White Pine (Pinus
monticola), White Fir (Abies concolor), Shasta Red Fir (Abies
magnifica var. shastensis), and Weeping Spruce (Picea breweriana)
(Axelrod 1976a).

During the Miocene climatic conditions were warmer and more mild than
at the present time, and included regular summer rainfall, thus supporting
in western Nevada a rich assemblage of arborescent plants in an area that
is now dominated by sagebrush scrub. As the climate began to cool
through the Pliocene (about 5.2 to 1.6 million years ago), leading to ice
ages of the Pleistocene (about 1.6 million to 11,000 thousand years ago),
it is likely that the Santa Lucia Fir could not tolerate these colder and
drier conditions, and thus became restricted to the more mild climates
of coastal mountains. While it is probable that Santa Lucia Firs
were more widely distributed in California prior to the Holocene, fossil
evidence has not been found, although fossil evidence demonstrates that
during the ice ages of the early Quaternary (about 1 million years ago)
a mixed conifer forest extended southward through a low and discontinuous
chain of ridges that are now the coast ranges and mountains of southern
California (these mountains were later elevated to their current heights).
Represented in a fossilized flora deposited on the floor of the San Jacinto
Valley (in southern California) are Sugar Pine (Pinus lambertiana),
Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa), Incense Cedar (Calocedrus decurrens)
and Quaking Aspen (Populous tremuloides); the area now supports
a semi-desert flora (Axelrod 1976 a & b, Raven & Axelrod, 1978).

With the evolution of California's mediterranean (summer drought) climate
during the current post-glacial period (the Holocene), which started about
11,000 years ago, most of central and southern California's coniferous
forests became extinct. Major factors contributing to the decline
of these forests were the onset of annual summer droughts, higher rates
of evaporation, and (perhaps especially to) what appears to have been a
very xerothermic (hot-dry) period between about 8,000 and 4,000 years ago.
Beginning perhaps as early as the Miocene, tectonic forces have been (and
still are) uplifting the coastal mountains of California, and by the Holocene
some of these mountain ranges had reached sufficient heights in order to
preserve fragments of montane coniferous forests that are now largely restricted
to the Sierra Nevada and north Coast Ranges. Along with the endemic
Santa Lucia Fir, montane conifers preserved in Santa Lucia Mountains include
Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa), Sugar Pine (Pinus lambertiana),
Big Cone Pine (Pinus coulteri) Sargent Cypress (Cupressus sargentii),
Knobcone Pine (Pinus attenuata), Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii,
which in the Santa Lucia Mountains is restricted to coastal slopes) and
Incense Cedar (Calocedrus decurrens). In a similar fashion,
a formerly much more extensive coastal coniferous forest became increasingly
restricted in its distribution, and species preserved on the coastal slopes
and adjacent areas of the Santa Lucia Mountains include Coast Redwood (Sequoia
sempervirens, which at one time ranged as far south as Ventura County),
Monterey Pine (Pinus radiata), Monterey Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa)
and Gowen Cypress (Cupressus goveniana) (Axelrod 1976 a & b,
Raven & Axelrod, 1978).

Current Conditions Affecting the Santa Lucia Fir

Santa Lucia Firs are almost entirely restricted
to two very dissimilar habitats: deep and moist canyon bottoms and dry
rocky slopes and ledges. The only factor which these habitats have
in common is that they are both generally fire proof, and as Santa Lucia
Firs have thin barked trunks and densely foliated crowns which extend to
(or nearly to) the base of the tree, they are readily consumed by forest
fires. Another detrimental factor affecting this species is the destruction
of seeds caused by a chalcid, a small wasp of the genus Megastigmus
(Wolf 1967). The wasps deposit their eggs directly into embryonic
seeds when the young cones are still soft, and the larva consume the inner
portions of the seeds while the outer casings continue to grow. After
the maturation of the seed casings the insects exit by drilling a small
round hole through this structure, leaving behind what appears to be (to
a casual observer) a viable seed. Fortunately the effects that the seed
chalcids have on the reproduction of the Santa Lucia Fir is cyclical, for
in many years abundant crops of viable seeds are produced. Based
on personal observation which is echoed in reports in botanical literature
going back more than 100 years, in areas where the species is well established
it is common to see trees at all stages of their life cycles, and in the
Church Creek area I have seen young trees forming thickets nearly as dense
as chaparral. Due to the rarity of the species and the remoteness
of most of the groves, exploitation of the Santa Lucia Fir has been essentially
nonexistent, although in 1910 Jepson stated a report that trees had been
logged near Cape San Martin "forty nine years ago" (thus in about 1861),
and this report echoes another report that in the mid 1800's New England
whalers used to cut trees along the Big Sur coast to replace masts broken
by storms (Lambert 1989). As nearly all of the trees occur within
the boundaries of the Monterey Division of Los Padres National Forest,
and perhaps more than 90% within the Ventana Wilderness, they are protected
from future exploitation, and unless for major unforeseen attacks by insects,
diseases or increased aridity, Abies bracteata will probably hold
its own in its wilderness abodes far into the distant future.

TALLEY, STEVEN N.
1974. The Ecology of the Santa Lucia Fir (Abies bracteata), a Narrow
Endemic of California. Ph.d. thesis, Duke University, Durham, N.C. A copy
is on file at the Science Library of the University of California at Santa
Cruz.

VEITCH, JAMES.
1881. A Manual of the Coniferae. James Veitch and Sons, Royal Exotic
Nursery, Chelsea, England.